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2. Man's Plans and God's

¹ Woe to those who plan iniquity,
   to those who plot evil on their beds!
At morning’s light they carry it out
   because it is in their power to do it.
² They covet fields and seize them,
   and houses, and take them.
They defraud people of their homes,
   they rob them of their inheritance.

³ Therefore, the LORD says:

   “I am planning disaster against this people,
   from which you cannot save yourselves.
You will no longer walk proudly,
   for it will be a time of calamity.
⁴ In that day people will ridicule you;
   they will taunt you with this mournful song:
‘We are utterly ruined;
   my people’s possession is divided up.
He takes it from me!
   He assigns our fields to traitors.’”

⁵ Therefore you will have no one in the assembly of the LORD
to divide the land by lot.

False Prophets

    ⁶ “Do not prophesy,” their prophets say.
   “Do not prophesy about these things;
   disgrace will not overtake us.”
⁷ You descendants of Jacob, should it be said,
   “Does the LORD become Or Is the Spirit of the LORD impatient?
   Does he do such things?”

   “Do not my words do good
   to the one whose ways are upright?
⁸ Lately my people have risen up
   like an enemy.
You strip off the rich robe
   from those who pass by without a care,
   like men returning from battle.
⁹ You drive the women of my people
   from their pleasant homes.
You take away my blessing
   from their children forever.
¹⁰ Get up, go away!
   For this is not your resting place,
because it is defiled,
   it is ruined, beyond all remedy.
¹¹ If a liar and deceiver comes and says,
   ‘I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,’
   that would be just the prophet for this people!

Deliverance Promised

    ¹² “I will surely gather all of you, Jacob;
   I will surely bring together the remnant of Israel.
I will bring them together like sheep in a pen,
   like a flock in its pasture;
   the place will throng with people.
¹³ The One who breaks open the way will go up before them;
   they will break through the gate and go out.
Their King will pass through before them,
   the LORD at their head.”

It follows, Ascend shall a breaker before them; that is, they shall be led in confusion; and the gate shall also be broken, that they may go forth together; for the passage would not be large enough, were they, as is usually done, to go forth in regular order; but the gates of cities shall be broken, that they may pass through in great numbers and in confusion. By these words the Prophet intimates, that all would be quickly taken away into exile. And they shall go forth, he says through the gate, and their king shall pass on before if them The Prophet means here, that the king would be made captive; and this was the saddest spectacle: for some hope remained, when the dregs of the people had been led into Chaldea; but when the king himself was led away a captive, and cast into prison, and his eyes pulled out, and his children slain, it was the greatest of misery. They were wont to take pride in their king, for they thought that their kingdom could not but continue perpetually, since God had so promised. But God might for a time overturn that kingdom, that he might afterwards raise it anew, according to what has been done by Christ, and according to what had been also predicted by the Prophets. “Crosswise, crosswise, crosswise, (transversa) let the crown be, until its lawful possessor comes.” We then see that this, which the Prophet mentions respecting their king, has been added for the sake of amplifying.

He afterwards adds, Jehovah shall be at the head of them; that is, He will be nigh them, to oppress and wholly to overwhelm them. Some consider something to be understood, and of this kind, that Jehovah was wont formerly to rule over them, but that now he would cease to do so: but this is too strained; and the meaning which I have stated seems sufficiently clear, and that is, — that God himself would be the doer, when they should be driven into exile, and that he would add courage to tyrants and their attendants, in pursuing the accursed people, in order to urge on more and more and aggravate their calamities and thus to show that their destruction vault happen through his righteous judgment. We now then understand the real meaning of the Prophet. ⁹¹⁹¹     Calvin is not singular in his view of this passage. Scott takes the same view, while Henry regards the passage as containing a promise, and so do Marckius, Newcome, and Henderson. But some have considered the words as those of the false prophets, referred to in the eleventh verse, and that Micah answers them in the next chapter. There is no sufficient ground for this opinion. Of those who regard the passage as including a promise, some apply it to the restoration from the Babylonian captivity, and others to spiritual restoration by the gospel. But the passage, viewed by itself, and in its connection with the next chapter, bears evidently the appearance of a commination: there are especially two words which manifestly favor this view, — תהימנה and הפרף; both are taken generally, if not uniformly, in a bad sense. The first means to tumultuate, to be turbulent and riotous, to be clamorous and noisy; the second signifies to demolish, to break through, to destroy, and in every instance in which it is found as a personal noun, it means a destroyer or a robber. — See Psalm 17:4; Ezekiel 18:10; Daniel 11:14. The first is a verb in the second person plural of the future tense, and in the feminine gender, because of the comparison made in the former lines to sheep and a flock. The verbs in the 12^th verse are all in the future tense, and the two first in the 13^th are in the past, according to what is common in prophecies, but must be rendered as futures. I propose the following version of the passage, —
   12. Gathering, I will gather Jacob, the whole of thee;
Assembling, I will assemble the residue of Israel;
Together will I set them as the sheep of Bozrah,
As a flock in the midst of its fold; —
Ye shall be more noisy than men.
   13. Ascend shall the breaker in the sight of them,
— they shall break through,
And pass the gate, yea, they shall go forth through it,
And pass shall their king before them,
And Jehovah shall be at their head,
or, for their leader.
   — Ed. Now follows —